The Last Time
by thatswhyyyoudont
Summary: Slash. Shizuo tells himself he takes the job because it's a one off, it's good money and it's something different. It's nothing to do with the fact that Izaya Orihara is in Kanto.


Nothing at all.

It's not like he expected Izaya to have at least made an appearance by now. For Shinra to have some news of him. Hell, for him to even pull some shit from a distance. But it seems Izaya has finally taken Shizuo at his word, and is Staying Out of Ikebukuro. Which is fine. Which is what he wanted all along.

Since Izaya has been gone, Shizuo's behaviour and reputation has been improving, and he gets more work. Tom recommends him for out of town jobs when he wants a change of scene. 27 years of Ikebukuro is too much for anyone. They're never exactly 5* stays in Hawaii, but he enjoys them. After Ikebukuro, even the shadiest individuals are like kittens in comparison. Izaya probably has a field day with them all.

Shizuo frowns to himself. He has to stop letting Izaya casually into his thoughts, a habit now more than ever since realising he's alive.

He asks his temporary employer about him, casually, on the basis of avoiding potential dramas. He tells Shizuo he doesn't know much aside from what Tom told him, but that if Izaya has any sense, he will stay away.

This is suspiciously anti-climatic. But, Izaya knows how to keep a low profile, and God forbid he ever make anything easy. Shizuo tries to put it out of his mind.

* * *

The job is straight-forward, as he knew it would be. Shizuo barely has to growl and they pay up. Aside from his work, Kanto is peaceful. It is smaller than Ikebukuro, less crowded, with more parks and open spaces.

He thinks of bringing up Izaya's name with a few suitable individuals he meets - the thought of him is as recurrent and pressing as the need to smoke - but decides against this. If Izaya is anything like he used to be, he will get wind of this, and that would not be good at all.

It gets to him more than he thought it would. He won't be taking a job here again.

* * *

When he does see Izaya, it is entirely by accident on both sides. He's been so on edge, he almost thinks his mind is playing tricks on him. But he watches Izaya out of the corner of his eye, trying not to move his head, and knows it is him from the way his heart squeezes several sizes too small.

It was bound to happen, he supposes. Kanto is small; he has a night job; there are only so many bars still open.

Izaya has his back to him, and is talking to someone else. It is a relief to see him walking, to see him physically unhandicapped. He doesn't turn Shizuo's way once.

Shizuo's eyes trail him until he leaves, and finds his feet following blind, leaving his drink, out into the night.

He looks both ways in the street. For someone supposedly partially disabled, Izaya is pretty fucking fast. Shizuo sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. What the hell is the matter with him? He fumbles for a cigarette, begins a slow walk back to his hotel.

It's closer than he thinks, and he has to go round the corner to finish his smoke. The train station's not far, the last one not due yet. He has plenty of time.

"Why are you following me?"

Shizuo jumps. It takes him a moment to find Izaya in the dark, for the glint in his eyes is lower than it should be. Shizuo realises he is in a wheelchair. He is also smirking, enjoying Shizuo's discomfort thoroughly, although there had been a slight edge to his tone.

"I'm not following you," Shizuo growls. "I'm staying here." He jerks his head at the hotel and immediately wishes he hadn't.

Izaya ignores this. "You left when I did," he points out. His legs are crossed, and he's lounging back in the chair like it's a throne, like it's all a joke, and for some reason it makes Shizuo furious.

"Why are you in that fucking thing? I saw you walking a minute ago."

Izaya's smirk widens, and Shizuo realises too late that he's probably being baited.

"Bother you, does it?" He rolls his eyes, and the edge slips back into his voice. "Yes, Shizu-chan, I'm faking it. I use it because I'm lazy and it gets me good seats at the movies." He looks away, almost as if annoyed. "No," he says, casual now. "I just get tired easily."

Shizuo feels a little stab of unease, forces it down. _He's_ the one who should feel vindicated.

"You could have called."

Izaya lifts his head, narrow-eyed.

"I'm sorry?"

"You could have fucking called and let me know you weren't dead."

"It wouldn't have mattered if I was, Varona- "

"That's not the fucking point and you know it."

Izaya just looks at him, deadpan.

"You knew I was alive. A reporter came and interviewed you on me."

"That was recently. For two fucking years I didn't know. _Shinra_ didn't even know."

Izaya has the decency to lower his head.

"Seems Ikebukuro doesn't know much without an informant," he jokes. His fingers dance restlessly when Shizuo doesn't answer, an old nervous habit. "Well," he says eventually. "Things have worked out, haven't they?"

Shizuo just looks at him.

"That's it?" he says, and Izaya glances up almost uneasily. "That's all you have to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

Shizuo growls in frustration. He drops his abandoned cigarette and crushes it beneath his foot. "I'm not trying to get you to say a specific thing. I'm asking if you have anything to say."

Izaya avoids his eyes. His fingers itch on the wheelchair arm.

"I'm sorry?"

It comes out as a question, a stab in the dark, and it hurts more than an outright insult. It is worse than not seeing him at all. Shizuo rolls his eyes and turns away.

"Shizuo."

Something in his voice, the way he blurts it, his actual name, makes him look back.

"I'm sorry," Izaya repeats, in a different tone. He has adjusted his position in the dark, so it's harder to see and hear him. "I miss you," he goes on. "I wish I'd never met you at all."

Shizuo had come forward to hear him better, and he stops in his tracks now.

"I can't stand being away from you. I hope you leave and never come back. I hope you- "

Shizuo drops to kiss him, gripping the chair's arms for support. Izaya's hands fist his shirt like nothing had changed at all, like it hasn't been two years, pulls himself up and out of the chair, backs Shizuo into the wall with strength he had underestimated.

They both start when something crashes behind them. Shizuo looks up and swears when he sees Izaya's wheelchair is missing, and apparently lost and broken somewhere in the dark.

"Sorry," Shizuo says, because it is technically his fault, but Izaya is laughing too much to even call him a brute. It is the high pitched, crazed giggle of someone who has been too tense for too long. "Don't you have brakes for that thing?"

"You were right," Izaya tells him, when he's recovered. "I don't use it much. It's mostly for show." He puts a hand back on Shizuo's chest. "Lulls people into a false sense of security."

He looks at Shizuo almost mockingly, and Shizuo has no idea whether he's lying or not.

"Do you want me to- ?" He nods in the vague direction the chair had taken, and Izaya cuts him off.

"No," he says. "Leave it. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I have another one somewhere."

He kisses Shizuo again, and Shizuo doesn't argue.

* * *

Shizuo wakes up to Izaya's hair in his face, Izaya's in his throat, their limbs curled around each other. He doesn't move an inch. He doesn't even think. He'll think when Izaya's awake and talking and behaving in ways that require him to think. He doesn't have to wait long.

Izaya shifts without moving them and senses Shizuo's awake.

"When do you have to leave?"

"Yesterday."

Shizuo feels him smile.

"You're the only person I've ever slept with," Shizuo tells him, like it matters.

"Likewise," Izaya says, without sounding very surprised. "Fucked up, isn't it?"

He also doesn't move. He doesn't say anything else. Shizuo starts thinking anyway. He has a lot to say himself.


End file.
